Archive for January, 2011

January Garden Update

January 27, 2011 · Filed under Gardening, House and renovations

I’ve wanted to fix up the side of the house and put in a little green garden since we bought the house a couple of years ago.  The side of our house is paved with black cinder and has always had three strawberry guava trees and two palms.  Although the strawberry guavas produce a ton of fruit every year, I thought all of the black lava rock looked a little depressing and boring.  Here’s a “before picture”:

It was all very black and dark and I really wanted to brighten things up.  So, I picked up packs of garden supplies and went to work.

First, I cleared the black lava rock out (I actually just moved it to the back of the garden, but at least its out of the way), and extended out the existing border of the current flower bed with stone borrowed from Mom and Julies house (thanks!).   I made a vegi patch box and back filled all of this  with a manure, compost, topsoil mix.  The manure smells awful, but it’s suppose to do wonders for my plants.

I researched the “square foot garden” and installed my square foot borders.  The square foot garden was created by a civil engineer, and is based upon a grid of one foot by one foot squares, in order to best optimize water and soil conditions.  I’ve never done it before, but there seems to be some logic around it, and really, I like how organized the garden looks once the dividers were set up.

Next, I put in stepping stones and made a trellis with our old fence, recycled PVC pipe and rebar.

Now, I’m in my planting phase:  ti-leaves, ginger, and heliconia in the back, some vegis in the garden (I bought zucchini, beans, eggplant and cucumber seeds), and grass on the walkway.  The ginger and heliconia are actually from Mom’s yard-  Dad pulled it out for me a couple of years ago and I’m happy I found a permanent garden home for them.

I decided to plug the grass, even though we rolled out sod last time we installed grass.  Plugging is at least 10 times cheaper  but it’s a lot more work– cutting the sod, preparing the soil, and measuring everything out.  It’s definitely a learning curve, and I’m hoping that at least some of the plugs will catch and grow.  It’s all still a work in progress, but I’m hoping for a beautiful green garden in the next few months.   :)

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Safe and Sound: Whistler, 2011

January 26, 2011 · Filed under Vacation

Jonathan and I are safe and sound, back from the very cold, super fun, and very active ski trip to Whistler.


 

 

It was freezing (literally) in Canada, and it was a nice change from the always 80 degree weather in Hawaii.  We were gone only for a few days, but we definitely made the most out of our time in the snow.   We spent a couple of days skiing, spent a few hours at the the tube park, took a  snowmobile ride, and my favorite, dog sledding!

 

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Our New Fence!

January 19, 2011 · Filed under House and renovations

Jonathan and I finally got around to building our fence in our backyard.  We’ve been talking about it since we bought the house, but never got around to it.  Jonathan and I thought that with Dad’s help, we could build it ourselves.   Dad and Jonathan actually put up a fence a couple of years ago, and I thought that it would be a good learning opportunity for us.  Here’s the link to the old fence:  http://jonjennyelton.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/our-new-fence/

Alone, however, we were 100% positive that a fence project would be next to impossible, and although Grant and Julie offered to help, we hired Vinyl Fencing Hawaii.  Two thumbs up for Vinyl Fencing Hawaii– They were efficient, professional, and appropriately priced.

Before the fence…  I wish I took pictures of the two fences between the neighbors and us falling down.  We were using bungee cords to hold one fence up, and our neighbor, Mrs. Park had to prop the other fence up with a few potted plants.

And after!  The concrete and epoxy will still cure for the next few days, but for the most part, the fence went up in two days, and is basically ready to use.

We decided on a vinyl fence because they last forever and don’t require a lot of upkeep.  Metal fences rust (especially metal next to ocean water), and wood gets eaten by termites and require regular paint jobs.   We were pretty sure that we would forget to upkeep the metal or wooden fence, so, we sucked it up, and paid a little more for not one, or two, but FIVE fancy vinyl fences: one along the back yard, two on each side of the house, and two on the water to separate us from the neighbors.

3.3 foot tall picket fence with four foot gate facing the water.

Four foot picket with three foot gate on right side of house.

Privacy fence between right sided neighbors and us.

Privacy fence between left sided neighbor and us.

Four foot picket with three foot gate on left side of house.

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Hawaii Kai Boat Parade 2010

January 19, 2011 · Filed under Family pics

My last 2010 Holiday post!

Our favorite float, based on the movie “Avatar”

We gathered at our house, and decorated gingerbread cookies and enjoyed the 2010 Hawaii Kai Boat Parade.  Julie brought the gingerbread house, and I made a boatload of gingerbread peeps, stars, flowers, trees and angels.

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Mochi Making 2010

January 18, 2011 · Filed under Family pics, Foodies and food

Also a little, late, but the holidays came and went so quickly this year.  I promised Julie that I would blog about our Mochi adventures, so here it is:

Every year, since I was little, we have made mochi for New Years.  Dad typically led us and did all of the “hard stuff”, like loading the machine, transferring the mochi to the table, and cutting the mochi into even proportions.

This year, we were on our own, and it turned into a mochi mess.  Dad tried to teach us how to use the machines last year– he even scribbled notes on the side of the manual and box.  Unfortunately, we didn’t pay close enough attention, and it turned into an epic fail.  It made me hope that I paid better attention to all of Dad’s other life lessons more than his mochi lesson.

Four hours, three ruined batches, and one ruined machine later, we finally figured it out enough to make edible, non crunchy, not too watery mochi.   Here’s a picture of our ruined machine– the mochi ran out of the maker an into all of the joints and mechanisms of the machine.  This never happened when Dad made mochi.

How many doctorate degrees does it take to figure out the mochi maker?  Three!  A picture of Julie, Jr and I standing around the instruction manual.  It’s Jonathan’s favorite picture of the day…

And our finished product, after eight hours of hard work.  When Dad did it, it only took 3 hours.  :(

So, for next year, I’m putting our notes onto this blog, so we can easily print it up, and save us the trouble of figuring it all out again.

Mochi Making Tips for the Sato Family

1.  Use the WHITE, NEW machine.  Don’t use the old red one.

2. Load the WHITE machine in the following order: 2 and 1/2 cups of water on the bottom of the machine, then lock in the bucket, then the spinner, then add 10 cups of soaked mochi rice.

3. Use the small measuring cup that COMES WITH THE MACHINE.

4.  Turn the machine on, and let it steam for 35 minutes.  Wait for the beep.

5.  Press OFF button before starting the pounding.

6.  There is no Beep to signal the end of pounding.  Check on it in 10-15 minutes.

7.  Ingredients for 8 Kasane, 60-70 mochi soup mochi, and a small batch of an mochi: 2 bags of mochi rice (extra bag if we want more an mochi), 1 can of koshi an, 1 can of tsubushi an, potato starch.

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Happy New Year 2011!

January 13, 2011 · Filed under Family pics

A little late, but better late then never.

I was unfortunately working the evening shift on the 31st and the night shifts in the ED on the 1st, so I didn’t get to partake in the New Years Eve fireworks festivities.  Jonathan took pictures of the party at Julie and Grant’s, and luckily, we weren’t too busy on New Years Eve, so I got out at a reasonable time, and was home by midnight.  Jonathan and I enjoyed the fireworks “show” across the marina, and we were able to set off our fireworks at midnight.  Also, since I worked the night shift the following day, I was able to be blessed at temple and enjoy our traditional New Years lunch at Aunty Helen’s house.

January has been a busy month so far.  Some highlights for January:

Our house is still a work in progress, but this year, we will be working on the fence in the backyard and filling in the pool (and making Jonathan’s “man” room).  We actually hired a fence guy AND a contractor, so hopefully, we’ll start our big building projects soon!  There’s still a lot of little projects to do around the house– Here’s a picture of Jonathan fixing the gutters during the last rain, and our donation stuff for Goodwill– but we’re planning on the big projects first, and doing the little ones between the big projects.

I’m also back into my garden, and made a new vegi garden patch!  I’ll put up more updates when the plants actually grow, but for now, nothing is really planted yet because Elton and Rafa like to dig holes in the new dirt.   Once the fence is in, I’ll be able to plant more stuff and have less muddy puppies.    Cheers for now, but I’ll put up more posts soon.  :)

 

 

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